KevinMD's Take, June 22, 2011

That's a daring idea proposed in a recent New York Times op-ed. Newly minted doctors are often in debt, owing more than $150,000 in many cases. This influences their choice of career, and contributes to the primary care shortage.

After medical school, doctors who choose to do a specialty residency won't get paid during their training:

Doctors choosing training in primary care, whether they plan to go on later to specialize or not, would continue to receive the stipends they receive today. But those who want to get specialty training would have to forgo much or all of their stipends, $50,000 on average. Because there are nearly as many doctors enrolled in specialty training in the United States (about 66,000) as there are students in United States medical schools (about 67,000), the forgone stipends would cover all the tuition costs.

Of course, a plan like this will never come to fruition. But I applaud it being brought to the table. Solving the primary care shortage takes bold ideas like this one, if only to underline the seriousness of the problem.

In a riveting first-person account, the emergency physician on duty writes about the harrowing experience:

You never know that it will be the most important day of your life until the day is over. The day started like any other day for me: waking up, eating, going to the gym, showering, and going to my 4 pm ED shift. As I drove to the hospital, I mentally prepared for my shift as I always do, but nothing could ever have prepared me for what was going to happen on this shift.

It's a must-read, and a testament to the bravery by everybody involved on that fateful day.

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